One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of determining when it's a good idea to plant dahlia is to examine the USDA zone info for Monroe.

Planting Calendar for Dahlia

Frost tolerance for dahlia:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

It's probably a bad idea to plant dahlia until after all chance of frost has passed because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant dahlia in Monroe is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant dahlia and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your dahlia may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your dahlia indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on March 15 in Monroe. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 15°F.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Monroe is just an average and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Monroe you get surprised by a frost after March 15 be ready to cover your dahlia if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Monroe

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Monroe

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Monroe.